Kyle, Brittany, France
I'm an American, PhD student in rural France, working on a computer application that will interact in French Sign Language with deaf people. The work is grueling and the isolation is difficult, so I find myself saving up to take trips back to Paris or the States to hang out with friends and family. I'm single and haven’t ever left school. I'm fortunate to make some money on the side, but I’ve still had to adopt a frugal lifestyle to keep my finances in check.
Prior to YNAB, I was constantly eating away my bank account by the end of the month-- sometimes into the negative. I would spend as I went along, and didn’t have a defined budget to keep me in check. Plus, I had about $45,000 in student loans, growing interest everyday!
When two friends recently lost their jobs, I saw how difficult it was for them. One friend had been saving monthly through the years and was able to keep his house and a reduced lifestyle. The other had no savings and had to move out of his apartment, eventually couch surfing among friends. I wanted to be like the first friend in the event the same happened to me.
I picked up YNAB six months ago after seeing it reviewed online. I got hooked immediately and convinced my mom and others to get on the YNAB train. Now I'm growing my Buffer, my rainy day categories, and budgeting money every month to go towards my loans. I was really scared I’d have to make huge sacrifices in my social life to get my financial life in order. I really enjoy having people over for dinner and I didn't want to serve my friends meagerly in order to meet my budget. YNAB's budget tracking has allowed me to adjust my spending as the month goes on so as to meet my budget at the end of each month.
Now, I track all of my spending as it happens, and cumulatively for the month. I keep two YNAB files to help me manage my spending in Euros and to pay off debt in US Dollars. Before, I was getting bogged down by exchange rates, finance charges, and money transfers. Now, YNAB keeps track of my pay-off goals for me.
YNAB follows the general layout of other budgeting software, but lives by four rules that make YNAB unique and effective. I’d used other services in the past to track my spending, but was always living in an "oops" situation where I’d overspend and get myself into debt. YNAB teaches you to spend money you already have. It’s a little bit of a paradigm shift but liberates the user to actually follow, budget, and rebound from those increasingly-rare overspend situations.
Six months into using YNAB, I've managed to get my Buffer up to one month's salary and pay off about $3,500 worth of debt. Plus, I've opened a retirement account with $1,500 that I was able to put aside. YNAB showed me how my small student's salary ($1900/month) could be budgeted and tracked simply to make real savings and debt reduction happen.
YNAB teaches you to spend money you already have.